In traditional e-commerce, a user electronically attaches to a vendor's Internet Web site to make purchases. This most widely-used model is essentially an electronic catalog, in which goods and/or services are listed by vendors and purchasers actively peruse. Operators of these sites invest millions of dollars in advertising and brand building in order to encourage users to visit their sites, thereby increasing the costs of products since advertising costs must be passed on.
In traditional e-commerce, the user has limited power since he/she is forced by the structure of the marketplace to transact business with a specific site. There are, however, sites that “look for” the best deal. Here, the user has more flexibility and is more empowered, but still is at the mercy of the site doing the searching. There is still a manual element involved. Furthermore, the user may have to attach to another site to transact the purchase.
Another e-commerce technique is essentially a reverse auction, in which the user indicates a desired price and providers of goods and services vie to meet the price. Yet another model allows a user to requests an item on a web site and the site sends the request to vendors in order to obtain the desired product. Bidding on Internet sites is also well known, e.g., eBay.com. Also, some sites allow users to design a customized view (i.e., a Web page) of the site. Further, there are business-to-business sites where businesses buy and sell products and services. There are other e-commerce techniques (including business-to-business) as known in the art. What all these methods have in common is that they do not provide sufficient autonomy to users, who must visit sites to make purchases. In current electronic business, the user is not sufficiently empowered in the electronic world known as the Internet.